The language of the tongue is often used to disguise our thoughts,
whereas the language of the pencil is clear and explicit. Who that
possesses this language can fail to look back with pleasure on the
course of a journey illustrated by pencil drawings? They bring back to
you the landscapes you have seen, the old streets, the pointed gables,
the entrances to the old churches, even the bits of tracery, with a
vividness of association such as mere words could never convey.
Thus, looking at an old sketch-book brings back to you the recollection
of a tour, however varied, and you virtually make the journey over
again with its picturesque and beautiful associations. On many a fine
summer's day did my sisters make a picnic excursion into the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh. They were accompanied by their pupils,
sketch-book and pencil in hand. As I have already said, there is no
such scenery near any city that I know of. Arthur's Seat and Salisbury
Crags, Duddingston Loch, the Braid Hills, Craigmillar Castle,
Hawthornden, Roslin, Habbie's How, and the many valleys and rifts in
the Pentlands, with Edinburgh and its Castle in the distance; or the
scenery by the sea-shore, all round the coast from Newhaven to Gullane
and North Berwick Law.

The excursionists came home laden with sketches. I have still by me a
multitude of these graphic records made by my sisters. Each sketch,
however slight, strikes the keynote, as it were, to many happy
recollections of the circumstances, and the persons who were present at
the time it was made. I know not of any such effective stimulant to
the recollection of past events as these graphic memoranda.
Written words may be forgotten, but these slight pencil recollections
imprint themselves on the mind with a force that can never be effaced.
Everything that occurred at the time rises up as fresh in the memory as